


Nature's Veil

by EmmaParkes



Category: Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Fairy Tale Adaptation, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5414039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaParkes/pseuds/EmmaParkes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a town tucked away in the mountains, with a long history of interactions with the wolves that live in the forest, two men will find that not all vendettas can be forgotten, even after 100 years. Terror reigns on the town with a series of murders, the men doing all they can to solve them before the town loses anyone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature's Veil

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! This is an original work. It's something I wrote for my class, (Re)Telling Fairy Tales this semester. It's an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood. I hope you enjoy! Comments and constructive criticisms are welcomed, as always! It's not beta'd or edited by anyone other than myself, so I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors.

At the base of an ancient mountain sat a town, one that had been snuggled up beside this range for millennia. In the beginning of the town, it was small, with only a few log houses, and there was discord between the natural life in the forest and the inhabitants that lived so deep in the wilderness. The early days were full of disastrous hunts and terrible reports of maiming, until one brave man walked out into the trees, unarmed, and waited for the ruler of the forest. Out from between the shadows, in the falling dusk, came a hulking tawny wolf, the leader of the ancient race of wolves that roamed and protected the mountains and surrounding forests. Flashes of eyes between black shadows in trees followed the wolf, the rest of the pack on alert but curious about the man who didn’t smell of ill intention. 

This race of wolf, so ancient they were as old as the mountain, had even more heightened senses than other wolves, and with those senses came power, a mental connection to everything in the forest. The man and his family had lived at the base of the mountain for generations, and therefore knew the balance of the forest, the give and take of the land and the animals that could thrive there. With this link, the wolf was able to communicate to the man, and the man to the wolf. These communications were not as one might think. No words were exchanged, and no awkward gestures to try and get a meaning across. The communication was more sensory, a concentration that helped establish the connection, and then between man and wolf would flow images and sounds, smells and tastes, even feelings and intentions. 

Using this bond, there was a peace struck between the wolves and the race of man, one that solidified to a beings’ very soul, and from then on, there was harmony in the forest. The consciousness of the wolves would brush against that of the humans when they were near enough, and the wolves would share their knowledge in return for aid from the humans with medicine and tending injuries a wolf would not typically be able to overcome with natural healing alone. 

#

The name that was given to the town was Nature’s Veil, and it still resides against the side of the mountain, much larger than when it began. It seemed that anyone who moved out of Nature’s Vail always ended up moving back to the town, bringing with them a new family and growing the town. For much of history, the peace struck between the man and the ancient alpha’s pack held. Those who were born into the town were born with the connection and those that moved into the town with their families or with someone that had once been a town patron and was moving back gained the connection slowly, building it over months and years. Thus the wisdom that had been shared was passed on through the generations. 

#

One spring, a man came into the town on a donkey he’d been leading through the dense forest, long since having lost his horse, having been lost in the woods for nearing a week and a half now. Stumbling into Nature’s Veil, he saw a housewife that bid him to enter her home to recover himself. Over the course of a few days, the donkey and the man made a full recovery, and deciding he enjoyed the hospitality in the town, the man decided to stay. An old house was vacant, a family having built a larger one as it grew with children and grandchildren, so the man took over the upkeep of the smaller house that rested close to the forest at the base of the mountain.

Going around town throughout the week, he begged someone to help him find wolf traps and traps for other large and more predatory game. The whole town refused, telling the newcomer that none in the town harmed the wolves, and many people grew weary of his insistence. He had no one to make him stop and understand about the wolves, never wanting to hear about what he called mystical babble, ignoring anyone that tried to explain the connection. Determined not to be eaten after having survived this long, the man, who had no mental connection to the land, made his own traps as stealthily as he could, and set them out littering the back of the small property. They were poorly crafted, jagged teeth that had been rough cut from scrap metal, all using a rusty hinge, ones he’d been able to find around the town. He hadn’t put a thought into a release mechanism, feeling confident that whatever got caught in the trap would certainly not be able to escape and come for him.

Things were quiet for almost two weeks, the man blending in well with the town, even if he wasn’t attuned to the land and the animals in the forest like the other town patrons. One dark night, where the moon was nothing but a sliver in the sky, a large shape came limping through the back yards of the town, heading to one family in particular who had the most skilled healer. The man of that family had the strongest bond with the wolves in town, and this wolf, the beta of the pack, had been severely injured fighting a bear away from the town parameters. The noise from the fight and the low whines and heavy thuds of paw falls had the newcomer on alert, shaking as he grabbed his shot gun. He’d brought it with him on his travels, and it was something he hadn’t had to use since he’d been in the town. 

Standing in his kitchen in his long johns, the newcomer quivered as the paws sounded through his backyard. He was about to relax when there was a metal clang and a sharp howl that pierced the night, chilling him to his bones. The whole town awoke and the newcomer hid in his living room as everyone rushed with lamps to see what had happened. The howl had pierced into the hearts and minds of the wolf’s pack and every member of the town that was connected to the land. As the wolf was found, the town’s people tried as gently as they were able to release him. The trap had too wide a mouth, so while one foot had stepped into an empty space within the trap, the other leg that had been injured and causing the limp landed on the trigger mechanism, making the metal teeth of the trap snap around both of the wolf’s hind legs up around the muscular thighs. Since there had been no mechanism to disarm the trap, the wolf died in the midst of the crowd, whining and snarling in pain.

There was a rumbling in the earth soon after, a stampede of massive paws as the pack came thundering to the beta’s aid, but they were too late. The wolf lay dead and mangled, and the alpha of the pack let out a mighty howl, shaking everyone to their cores. The pack was distraught but none more than the mate to the beta. The alpha had to take great care to keep her away from the town’s people, knowing through the link that none of the ones out in the cold night killed the beta. The alpha was still furious and from that night on, after the beta had been released from the iron teeth of the trap, the bond between the humans and the wolves was fractured by grief and betrayal. 

The town’s people drove the newcomer from the Veil and he was never seen again. The beta’s mate also ran away that night, howling her sorrow through the woods, making them echo in a terrible, ghostly song of pain and loss. The pack mourned but none would follow her fierce vendetta for revenge, wanting to ravage the town and its people to rid the woods of the humans.

#

Not many slept that night, and over the next 100 years the connections between the forest and the humans was all but lost due to the fracturing, save for one that had been but a newborn the night of the terrible fate of the beta. He was now 100 years old and many thought he was crazy, the whole town suspecting him of dementia when he would wander up and down the streets, head swaying to look into the dark forest. He could still hear the wolves and their collective and individual consciousness’s would pull at his own when they were close. His name was Cornelius. 

Cornelius was beginning to go blind and in the past couple of months he’d picked up a habit of muttering to himself. When hobbling through town he would suddenly turn to gaze out into the forest through the houses and shops, muttering as he shuffled on a little faster. No matter what the town thought, he was sharp as a pin, though his body was growing more frail.

The wolves of this ancient race lived far longer than humans, so most of the pack was still intact, though the alpha had died and a new younger male took his place. None had seen the beta’s mate since that night she ran from what she saw as the betrayal of humans and the refusal of her pack for vengeance. 

A new generation had grown into prominence in the town of Nature’s Veil and the people had all but forgotten the old stories about the connection to the wolves. There was no longer easy dealings between the humans and the wolves, but the humans never hunted a wolf and knew to get out of the forest before dark, for the only warning they would get from a wolf would be the glinting of moonlight off of their eyes and then a low, rumbling growl that nearly shook the earth before they were never seen again. 

A young man named Erramun was a part of this new generation who was helping the town get back to thriving. The town had expanded out into the forest instead of up the side of the mountain, Erramun’s home being at the very base of the mountain and the end of the town. The homes were the focus of the main street, which was laid out in an elliptical shape, wider at the center of town and narrowing down as one approached either end. The streets and sidewalks were packed dirt from so many feet compressing the earth beneath over generations. Shops could be found behind the homes, though the homes were spread out enough to allow storefronts to be visible, and there were paths leading to every store between well-kept and flourishing yards. At the end of town furthest from Erramun’s home, there was a large stable that the whole town made use of, horses kept in shape to be used for work or when anyone needed to leave the forest.

While traps were still not used, Erramun worked as a blacksmith, making hunting tools, discovering new ways to keep homes secure, and generally improving the town’s metal work. Structures were sounder when he made or repaired them, and they were all done with great finesse and artistry. He was a tall man, broad in the shoulders with muscles strengthened by his profession.

Erramun’s partner was something of the town’s doctor or healer, finding the best herbs to help with any natural ailments, able to set bones and stitch together gashes, and he was found to be particularly adept at healing burn marks, thanks to Erramun’s profession. This man’s name was David. He was half a head shorter than Erramun, though just as broad through his shoulders. David had long fingers that were made for fine work and where Erramun had brown hair, David’s was a deep, blazing red. 

The two were well known throughout the town and it wasn’t odd for both of them to be gone the whole day without seeing each other. Night was their time to be together and they relished the opportunities. The two were recently married and thanks to their dual professions, were able to live very comfortably in the town of Nature’s Veil. Their house was at the furthest point from the town center, close to the edges of the forest and past where most shops stopped so that David was able to collect herbs and other things he would need for his healing practices, and Erramun had ample space to set up forges and work on large projects. 

A few months into the happy marriage, the two husbands were having a bath together to ease their aches after a long day of work, when a strangled scream pierced the cool night air in the town. They hurried out of the bath, splashing water as they tried to grab for towels, drying only enough to pull on pants and overcoats before both went running out of the house. Another scream rent the air, but cut off with a wet burble, and it sounded as though it was coming from the forest to the right of their home. Running back inside for lanterns, both went cautiously searching into the woods, other townspeople making the way up toward their home with their own lanterns. Each citizen looked as shaken and haphazard as the two husbands, and there were murmurs and head counting among them. 

One young wife came searching frantically through the crowd, turning men by their coat shoulders, searching for her husband. He was nowhere to be found. Erramun and David didn’t dare go too far into the dark forest that night, and the poor wife was led to their house to try and calm her nerves. David sent her off with a sleeping draught and Erramun walked her home, returning chilled and somber. 

The people went to sleep that night with a sense of dread blanketing the town. In the morning, search parties went into the woods and within an hour, they found the body of the poor woman’s husband. He had been up into the dense tree cover and discovered with two homemade traps mangling his body. They had jagged metal teeth that had been roughly cut, by one not experienced with metal, and there was no way to disarm and release the trap unless it was taken apart. One had snapped around his leg at the shin causing him to fall forward, and the other had snapped over his head after the fall, cutting through his neck. 

Carefully, Erramun took the homemade traps apart and the corpse was taken back to town in a wooden coffin to be buried in the cemetery. The widow mourned gravely for the loss of her husband, the couple having been married less than a year. 

#

Erramun brought the bloody, mangled traps back to their home, leaving them in the workshop. He’d never seen such crude craftsmanship, and he knew of no one in the town who would have a vengeance against the kind couple. There were few misunderstandings in Nature’s Veil, and those that happened were resolved in the most balanced way possible, everyone working together to keep the town as harmonious as possible. Being so far away from other civilizations, the townspeople relied on each other for everything. 

That day they held a beautiful ceremony for the dead husband and that night the lamps were blown out early, darkness brought to aid the mourning process. The town was somber the rest of the week, and then the following week, when the moon was new and the skies were dark, it happened again. 

A bloodcurdling scream split the night and the town was startled from their sleep. Many were too afraid to leave the warmth and safety of their homes, but this scream sounded closer to Erramun and David’s home, so they once again pulled on clothes and headed out with lamps. The search in the night proved fruitless once again and when they heard rustling and the sounds of the nocturnal animals in the forest, the men returned home at once, locking and barring the doors to keep out any unwanted predators. 

The body was found the next day in much the same way, in the woods, bloody and lifeless. The carnage was cleaner with this body, appearing to be from knife wounds; the tendons in his legs and his ankles cut to cripple, his stomach stabbed, and throat slit. The man had been recently married, almost a year, and his wife was newly pregnant with their first child. Her sorrow was overwhelming and the widow had a miscarriage, being left alone with her grief. David saw her through the pain and helped with every herb and solution he knew, but grief like this was not so easily cured. 

#

An eerie hush fell over the town for the next month, the two new widows trying to help each other through their mourning and the town looking after them in every way they could think of, but the morbid reality hung over each of their heads. David and Erramun never ceased their work, Erramun repairing every inch of a house in need, making sure more safety precautions were in place to protect the citizens. David tended to everyone as best as he was able, giving sleeping draughts to those that were too uneasy, making relaxing herb rubs to soothe tense muscles, anything he could do to aid in the recovery of the town. 

#

When all had been quiet for that month, the new moon was set to come again, but no one thought much of it. The darkest nights were the nights of the new moon, no light filtering through the tree canopy and little light going through the clearing that the town sat in. While the two men came dragging back to their homes from a late night visit to David’s parents, bolting the door and beginning to tug off their boots, there came another scream piercing the night and pounding in their ear drums. 

Both men leapt into action, pulling their boots back on and grabbing lanterns, hurrying out in the direction of the noise. The closer they got to the edge of the forest, the more they were able to hear. While there wasn’t another piercing scream, there were awful noises of pain, deep growls and the sound of fighting in the brush up into the forest. The couple went charging into the trees, determined to reach the person, a man from the sound of things, before he was killed. They did find him, hearing a great body loping off through the forest, growls still shaking the leaves on the trees as it did, but the man was mortally wounded. They carried him back to the house, not another soul leaving the protection of their home, but the man died once they were hardly through the door, blood burbling past his lips and dribbling out of gashes across his face as he begged the two to look after his wife. 

The man had been married almost two years and when the couple went to visit his now widow the next day, she tried to keep a stiff upper lip, but ended up collapsing into an arm chair. After the visit, David and Erramun needed something to, if not lift their spirits, at least warm their bellies. Heading to the town’s pub, they pulled up at the bar, settling in for hot food and drinks. The old man Cornelius was there, the one who had been alive from the time of the link between humans and wolves. He was perched at the far end of the bar, muttering into a glass that was half full of mead. 

“Afternoon Cornelius,” they both greeted warmly and chuckled as they got an arthritic hand raised and a grumble returned for their trouble. 

“What are you on about today, old man?” Erramun asked as he invited him to join them. 

“The woods are churning. Tis a thing unnatural come back,” he groused and took a pause to sip from his glass once again. “A thing unnatural indeed. Maulin’, murderin’, ne’er heard such a thing ‘round these parts. The old threads are fractured, but they’ll never be fixed in this state we’re in,” he had continued, making both men raise their brows. 

“I suppose murder is far too unnatural for this world,” David agreed sadly, picking up his own mead when the bar keep brought it over. 

“Not just the murder. The method. S’all unnatural if ye ask me, though none think to. I can feel ‘em, not so much as when I was a youngin’, but I can feel ‘em lurkin ‘round the edges of the forest. They’re not happy with it. Not happy with her,” he went on, seeming to get lost in his memories. 

“Her who, Cornelius?” Erramun urged. 

“That she-wolf. Her mate was killed. She’s finally returned for her vengeance. But there’s air of unnaturalness ‘round her! Mark me!” he said, shaking a bony finger at the couple.

As Erramun was about to try and calm Cornelius down, David put a hand on his shoulder, effectively shushing his husband. 

“What makes her feel unnatural, Cornelius? What’s changed about her?” he inquired softly, pulling the old man’s attention out of his drink and onto the couple. 

“More mystic. Somethin’ dark, mark me. She’s done it up unnatural, can feel it in the mind,” he said, tapping his temple. “The pack knows. The pack don’t like it one bit neither. Makes them antsy. They’ve been closing in for weeks,” he said, voice getting more and more hushed. 

“Alright, we believe you Cornelius,” David consoled the man before he could get too worked up. He might be sharp as a pin but he wasn’t as strong in the heart as he used to be.

The three shared their lunch and that evening, after making sure Cornelius got back to his cabin safely, the two headed home. There wasn’t much work today, no colds or injuries to tend to. Most of the town was just in the lull of the deaths in the past few months, so the couple cleaned up their house and when it was time for dinner, made their meal together and discussed what they had found out. 

Once the dinner plates had been cleaned, the doors bolted, and the lamps put out downstairs, Erramun and David headed up to indulge in a bath together, discussions still going on about how right or wrong Cornelius could have been relating to the murders.

“But just think about it… He is the only one that was there for the fracturing of the bond. The only one left. It’s been nearly 100 years exactly,” came the argument from David as the two disrobed. 

Erramun was filling the tub as his husband chattered on, letting him work himself into a tizzy over the supposed evidence that Cornelius had presented them. Once the tub was full, the two slipped in together easily, sighing as the warmth engulfed their bodies. 

“I just can’t believe it, not like this. The deaths--” 

“Murders!” David cut across him loudly. 

“Fine,” Erramun conceded. “Murders. The murders were all so different. How would a wolf get those mangled traps? And a wolf can’t slit throats with a weapon, and that’s definitely what the second murder was. Human and calculated.”

“But the third!” David shot back, trying not to get distracted as Erramun shifted closer. Strong arms wrapped around David’s waist and tugged him to lean his back against Erramun’s chest. “The third was an animal killing, vicious slashing and mauling. You can’t deny that.” 

“No, I can’t. And I didn’t. But there are other things that require my attention right now, besides mauling,” he teased, lips hot against David’s ear. Erramun felt his husband shiver at the tease and melt further back against him. 

“Well, maybe we can save this for tomorrow. We’ve both had very long months,” he reasoned, relaxing back and letting his husband tease him. Head rolling to the side, David’s eyes found the moon through the window, about half way to full on this night so there was a soft illumination on the street. He saw a shadow of sorts moving, a slight lurch to the stride, but walking none the less, and then there came another figure. Sitting up, startling Erramun, David looked more closely. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Erramun asked concerned, sitting up as well, worried that he’d upset his husband. 

“It’s someone. Someone’s walking down the path. Not ours, just… through the town. What on earth time is it, the lamps were put out ages ago…”

Both men got up out of the tub and took a closer look at the two figures, one with a strange stride and then a man from their town. They could almost make out his face, but then the first figure began to lead him closer to the tree line. 

“Erramun,” David whispered. “Does… is there something that seems inhuman about the first figure? Something…” he paused, turning to look at his husband with wide eyes before the word tumbled from his lips. “Unnatural.” 

Both men ran from the bathroom, grabbing for pants but not much else in their haste to get to the man being led to his possible doom. Bursting from the door to their house, they ran, screaming for the man to stop. Catching up to the slow moving figures, the two ran headlong between them, Erramun putting himself between the two and David tackling their neighbor to the ground to stop him. 

The first figure was revealed to them in the moonlight, and unnatural was definitely the word to describe it. While the figure was feminine, it was in a beastly way. The face was too long, teeth yellow and jagged, hair matted with leaves and dirt, fingernails sharp and raw looking around the cuticles. The woman, if she could really be called that, bared her teeth and growled but the two men hauled their neighbor to his feet and ran back to their house. The loping limp of the woman slowed her pursuit. 

The men got inside and locked the door, but their neighbor wouldn’t settle. He begged to be let out, saying he had to get to his wife, he had to help her, she was wandering around in the woods and she needed him, but David and Erramun knew that his wife would be safe at home, just as the other three wives had been. 

The only thing that seemed to snap him out of his madness were the claws on the door. There was a thud, as though something had butt against it, then the growling started as the claws dug at the door. Their neighbor fell away from it, blinking as though clearing his eyes and just realizing where he was. The door was reinforced so the three men didn’t worry about the animal getting in, just backed up and went up the stairs. 

David and Erramun spoke with their neighbor through most of the night, getting his story and what led him out so late in such cold with such a terrible figure. 

#

In his home, the man had been finishing locking up the doors and sealing the windows, about to join his wife upstairs. When he came to the front of the house, before closing the last window’s shutters over the glass, he saw a pale figure outside the home, down before the porch. Upon looking closer, the figure appeared to be his wife, looking cold and lost. Confused, the man ran outside, only to find her walking away, almost drifting. No matter how he called to her, how he tried to run after her, he could not catch up, and she could not hear him, but he was determined to bring her home safe. That was when Erramun and David saw him and caught him, bringing the man into their home to protect him.  
The story he recounted was chilling and all three sat in a tense silence until their neighbor needed rest. After putting him to bed in one of their rooms, the two stayed up in their own bed, putting the pieces together. 

The next day, both men walked their neighbor back to his home, the front door having been bolted and the man’s poor wife answering the door in tears. She threw herself upon her husband, sobbing as he supported her, both of them terrified and aware that they could have been the next pair to be separated forever. 

The rest of the day consisted of calling a town meeting, gathering everyone into the square. David and Erramun, being so well known, were the voices of reason that day, explaining the night they’d had and the neighbor giving his own account. All the husbands held their wives closer after the retelling, everyone wondering the same thing. How do you protect yourself from something that can make you believe your loved ones are in danger?

#

There was a call to women that night, a call for them to be the ones to lock up the house and make sure everything was secure, trying to keep the husbands out of the grip of harm. One house across the town from Erasmus and Erramun had a wife who was nine months pregnant and ready to deliver at a moment’s notice. Being so far along in her pregnancy, she was unable to perform the duties assigned to the women. 

The figure came to the town once again that night, having been foiled the night previous, and that house is where she was drawn. David and Erramun were both on vigil that night, watching over the main street in the town from their house, sitting upon the roof to extend their view. They saw most of the action unfolding, the figure standing before a house far away, half lit by the moon, then the man coming out the front door as though in a trance. From there the figure turned and began her limp toward the forest close to the base of the mountain once again. Both men scrambled down from the roof as silently as they could, preparing their shotguns and stalking behind the houses until they could keep track with the limping stride, hiding in the shadows. 

The figure seemed to sense something, looking more anxious, more animalistic with her long face and jagged teeth, but didn’t stop, just continued leading. She was leading him toward the end of town once again, but she always took the same path, cutting through between two houses, and one of them was the house the newcomer had once occupied, the same back yard that the beta wolf had been killed 100 years ago.

#

The story came together for the two men the night before. The beta’s mate was still alive, and she had come back somehow to exact her revenge. The two whistled their signal, and lamps lit all around in the houses, fires blazing up to light the town. The she-wolf snarled, grabbing the man by the hand and trying to run with him, but her body was old and thin, bones in the proper arrangement but seeming to connect at the wrong angles, much like a dog trying to run on its hind legs, making her gait difficult and slow, so she couldn’t get away. 

David and Erramun blocked her path as women came streaming out of their homes, carrying pitch forks, torches to light the way, and any manner of weapon they had. Guns, hammers, even butcher knives from their kitchens were all out and in hand.

At the town meeting previous that day, the two men had advised all women to be prepared, prepared to fight for their husbands, to protect them from the evil forces that threatened to take them, and the whole town had responded. The women surrounded the she-wolf in the form she took, jabbing and defending to keep rank teeth away from the man she held captive and away from themselves. 

The she-wolf wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Rearing back, her sharp nails elongated into claws and glinted angrily in the torch and lamp light before she brought her hand down, slashing across the man’s chest. He had on a heavy coat that was cut to ribbons but it took the majority of the blow. As she raised her arm again, Erramun raised his gun and shot the she-wolf in the back. 

There was a pained cry, and then the she-wolf dropped her prey. The women were quick to drag him away from her, helping steady him as he came out of the stupor the she-wolf had over him. Before their very eyes, the she-wolf began to morph. Fur grew from her skin, her long face stretched further into a muzzle, and she dropped to all fours before keeling over onto her side. The shot would be fatal, but none in the town wanted to be cruel. Erramun stepped forward and pulled his pistol from his belt as her side heaved, firing one last bullet into the skull of the wolf to end its misery and pain and to end the reign of terror it held over the town. 

After the ringing shot, there was a silent hush that fell over the crowd of women and three men. Then, softly, as though coming slowly from a distance out, there began a rustling from the forest. Everyone turned, closing in and backing up into a ring, facing out to confront the new threat, for there was no time to run home for shelter. What they saw was the great wolf pack. 

Slowly, the pack stepped into the rings of light in the town through the shops and houses, heads down, sniffing, eyes alert and glinting, but none charging, none speeding in for a kill. They stopped, the great ring of wolves, surrounding the ring of women, and the new alpha of the pack raised his head. His eyes seemed to train right on David, and the man was drawn forward, steps slow and steady, his shot gun slipping slowly from his hand to the ground as he stepped away from the crowd. Erramun was steps behind him, but the wolf was paying him no mind. He was not about to lose his husband on this night. 

When David stopped, he was mere feet before the great wolf. Its muzzle came up to David’s chest, eyes wise beyond that of what one would think a wolf could be. Slowly, David knelt, lowering himself before the wolf. Erramun kept a hand on his shoulder, gripped tight into his jacket, tense and determined to pull his husband away from the wolf at the first sign of danger. 

The wolf dipped its head just a bit, its large black nose pressing to David’s forehead, and both of their eyes slipped closed in tandem. Images, colors, smells, and feelings all flashed into David’s mind at the contact. The pack in the forest, the smell of the beta’s mate returning. Her ill intentions. The stink of black magic. The unnatural form that she now possessed from a dealing with what the wolves could only call a demon. Then there came the anger at her actions, her intentional breaking of the natural laws of the forest. The anger of the wolf pack. The fear and sorrow that permeated the forest from the town. Then finally, there was the sound of two gun shots ringing through the pack’s ears, and then… calm. 

The wolf and David sat with their connection for what may have been a full minute, but so much passed between them that when the connection was broken, the wolf raising its head and removing his nose from David’s forehead, the man slumped back against Erramun. The town’s people watched as the wolves paused, and then David spoke, his voice deep and husked from what sounded like strain. 

“Let them have the body. The unnatural wolf is still their pack, and they wish to take her,” he decreed. Amazed, the women moved out of the way. Two wolves came tentatively into the center, maneuvering the she-wolf up and onto one of their backs, then the whole pack, as one, turned and walked back slowly into the dark forest. 

David was able to stand a few minutes later, grinning as he felt something brushing against his mind. “It’s real,” he told Erramun. “It’s real and we may have it, for restoring the balance properly,” he said. Raising one hand, David pressed his palm to Erramun’s forehead, and then the other gasped as he felt his mind broaden. There was now something to be sensed. Something alive and wild, but understanding, always keeping the balance between the natural world and the world of man. 

#

Once the town had returned to their homes, David and Erramun went to their own home, barring and locking the doors out of habit, and then curled up in their bed, sleeping their worries away late into the next morning. When they awoke, they called one last town meeting. 

The wives had mostly explained to their husbands the events of the night and why the men not allowed to have access to windows, wanting to keep them safe from the mystic glamor the she-wolf was able to disguise her disfigured form with. Her charm worked on new couples, ones that she saw as mates, but only on the male in the couple, and only on those that wanted for the female form. This was why Erramun and David were able to overcome her, for her glamor did not work on their eyes. They had eyes only for each other. David and Erramun explained to the town the link that they had gained with the forest, bringing Cornelius up with them to bolster the stories, filling in the gaps in the history. David offered the link, the bond with the land, and throughout the next week, every member of the town went to their doctor, their healer, and received the welcome link that tied the humans back to nature. 

From that day on, there was no more injustice between the natural world and the human. The wolves became more comfortable around the humans, offering help defending the town, begging help in hard winters or with injuries that would normally cost a life. All things in Nature’s Veil had returned to balance and the peace between the worlds stretched on before them.


End file.
